Tammy Faye Bakker’s Son Jay and His New Book: A Punk Preacher’s Inclusive Message

Jay Bakker

Tammy Faye Bakker Messner’s and Jim Bakker's son Jay introduced his new book "Fall to Grace" at Borders Bookstore near San Francisco’s Union Square on Jan. 24, and almost every seat was filled by eager fans and curious book fanciers.

Jay Bakker is the charming and dynamic minister of the Revolution Church based in Brooklyn, New York, after its move there from other American cities. Some LGBT fans of his mother were there to exchange stories about how much she meant to them in overcoming adversity, and others were there to thank him for basing his message on nonjudgmental inclusiveness. Bakker revealed that he joins Mel White’s Soul Force to visit conservative religious schools to dialogue with students and faculty because he feels that the current extreme antagonism against LGBT rights must be dealt with by ongoing communication.

Bakker’s family scandal erupted when he was a pre-teen. He turned to alcohol and drugs to deaden the pain and then cleaned himself up and began to serve the ignored and despised when he founded the Revolution ministry.

Bakker was entertaining when he spoke about seeking to discuss inclusion with major evangelical ministers all over the country. He even believes enough in liberal goals to conduct a gay marriage. Bakker is against mixing politics with religion because he thinks subjects such as abortion and homosexuality are too divisive to discuss civilly with a religious aspect attached to them.

His publicity photograph resembles the close-up portrait style of artist David Hockney. Bakker said that he has been mistaken for a young bear and that he has attracted primal gay bears. In reality he is a gay ally who has a tattooed-and-pierced punk look and thinks he has Marlon Brando’s mystique from the film "The Wild One."

Jay Bakker

Borders Union Square is a huge, handsome four-story book palace with someone reading or computing in every lounge chair. Seattle’s Best has a café in the store and two attractive, cruising young men at a front table could have also been seen at the Castro’s Café Flore.

Sales Manager Jason Jeffries introduced Bakker with the fine sound system and he encouraged the guests to join in on the Q&A and to buy a signed book.

The Evangelical Network’s Ed Ness, who is gay, had a crew with him to interview Bakker, and they spoke about their experiences at the recent Marriage Equality rally on the San Francisco federal courthouse steps.

The bookstore audience gave Bakker a loud, enthusiastic reception and made it clear that his practice of welcoming and offering unconditional love to a subculture of people rejected elsewhere because of their appearance and personal lives struck a chord with them. There was a long line to buy books and Bakker was generous with his time when he spoke to each person even though he was exhausted after a long book tour that ended in San Francisco.

Religion vs. Sexual Orientation with a Shot of Hypocrisy

Filmmaker Parvez Sharma with Rev. Lea Brown

More than 100 mostly white gay men squeezed into San Francisco’s historic Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in the Castro for a screening of "A Jihad For Love" on Jan. 16, 2010. The film is a breathtaking, landmark documentary about some religious Muslims who are lesbian and gay, and who are balancing their religion and their sexual orientation. Or as director Parvez Sharma put it without much subtlety, “It is about who you fuck and where you pray,” which drew nervous laughter from the throng.

MCC Church has been at its 150 Eureka Street building for 40 years, and the screening is the first of a series of events to mark that anniversary in 2010. The building was built over a creek with an originally questionable foundation, and when a wall shifted a while back the congregation had to evacuate to the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. An extreme rental situation brought the congregation back to 150 Eureka after a building reinforcement.

Numerous church members long for a new building at its present location — the site of notable historic community events including the welcome of gay Cuban refugees in 1980, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence fundraising bingo games. Multiple joinings and later marriages of same-sex couples, and also too many celebrations of life happened in the MCC Church sanctuary. A food program and sleeping areas for queer youth, meetings space for LGBT Democrats, and outreach to the Buddhist, leather, and recovery communities were and are some of the projects of the church.

Rev. Lea Brown welcomed the audience to the screening, and spoke warmly about MCC Church as a place for free spirituality
and as a center of love in the Castro for 40 years. The well-attended screening was the first of a series of events in 2010 to
celebrate the anniversary. More anniversary events are listed at mccsf.org.

Filmmaker Sharma spoke about the film’s popularity worldwide and that 8 million people have seen it in a year. Copies have been shown at secret screenings in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and in other countries where it would not be allowed to be shown in public. And these are countries where brave gay Muslims have been arrested for attending same-sex marriage ceremonies and parties.

One of the most surprising moments of the evening was when
Sharma spoke about two wild gay parties that he enjoyed in Tehran that he said outdid anything he had seen in San Francisco or New York City, where he lives. Sharma spoke about the hypocrisy that exists in homophobic societies in the Middle East, where lesbians and gays are persecuted but there is rampant, secret, same-sex coupling occurring among straight-identified people.

Muslim lesbians and gay men were introduced in the film in several countries, and they spoke intensely about their lives. Arrests and trials, whippings, public humiliation, rape, and death were a fact of life for them if they were exposed in their native countries. A remarkable feature of the film was the on-film meeting of the lesbians and gays with fundamentalist religious leaders. The shocking responses of the leaders to questions about the compatibility of Islam and homosexuality is enough reason to check out this admirable documentary.

Another example of the hospitality extended by the church was a bountiful Lebanese buffet provided by Ilyas Iliya. The evening ended with conversation and cruisy glances over the Middle-Eastern cuisine and one-on-one discussions with the filmmaker.

For more information on "A Jihad for Love," visit ajihadforlove.com.